Nautical tourism ports generated a total revenue of HRK 812 million in 2020, which was 11.6% less than in the record year 2019, and most of that revenue or 73.3% refers to berth rental, the State Bureau of Statistics (DZS) reported on Monday.

Revenue from berth rental in 2020 amounted to HRK 598 million, which is a decrease of 8.2% on the year.

Statistics indicate that revenue decreased in all Adriatic counties, with the biggest decrease of 23.3% on the year recorded in Dubrovnik-Neretva County. This was followed by Split-Dalmatia County (-17.4%), Istria County (-15%), Šibenik-Knin County (-11%), Zadar County (-6.4%) and Primorje-Gorski Kotar County (-2.6%).

The statistics relate to 185 nautical tourism ports with 18,625 berths. There was a slight increase in permanent berths of 0.4% y-o-y with 14,312 vessels being permanently berthed in Croatia as at 31 December 2020.

The majority of vessels permanently berthed sail under the Croatian flag (44.1%) followed by Germany, Austria, Slovenia and Italy, with an increase of vessels under the German and Slovenian flags of 3% and 1.7% respectively compared to 2019.

DZS underscored that the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a fall in the number of vessels in transit y-o-y. Last year there were 121,536 vessels in transit or 40.7% less than in 2019.